While Wall Street vultures circle amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis and try to entice Puerto Rico with “relief” offers in the form of more debt, advocates for economic justice are demanding immediate debt relief and federal stimulus spending to rebuild the island’s devastated infrastructure.

“Puerto Rico needs immediate humanitarian assistance before many more lives are lost thanks to America’s latest climate catastrophe, and reconstruction aid to help them rebuild their infrastructure,” Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, wrote for Common Dreams on Friday. She continued:

The hurricane only made a bad situation much, much worse: Puerto Rico has been reeling from austerity measures for years that were put in place by Wall Street, which has been calling to recoup the debt. One of Donald Trump’s first responses to the mounting humanitarian crisis was to remind people of the “billions of dollars” the territory owes to the bank, “which must be dealt with”—signaling what the priorities will be.

“Instead, we should consider forgiving Puerto Rico’s debt and federally fund its reconstruction,” Hauter added. “It’s important to demand federal funding for our precious water infrastructure before disasters happen as well; indeed, this funding was cut off to Puerto Rico because of its debt, making a bad situation much worse when the hurricane hit.”…

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Wenonah Hauter just had to blurt out glooobal waaarming at this moment. Predictable. Never mind the recordings of devastating natural disasters since antiquity (remember Pompeii, or stories of Atlantis’ sinking?).